But witness in murder trial says Robert Schmidt spoke of choking victim, who was shot.

Shane Gallahan is no choir boy, a former marijuana dealer who said he dabbled in guns, cocaine and crystal meth.

But the kind of crime his acquaintance, Robert A. Schmidt, was trying to tell him about was just too much, Gallahan remembered Wednesday during Schmidt's Northampton County murder trial.

"They won't find him," Gallahan recalled Schmidt saying of Robert J. Sarko, a mentally troubled man who lived with Schmidt's family in Moore Township. "He's out in the woods."

Schmidt is accused of killing Sarko, 26, in 2000 and burying the body on his S. Mink Road property, where it wasn't discovered until four years later. If convicted of first-degree murder, Schmidt would receive life in prison without parole.

"I'm not into murdering people," Gallahan said on the second day of prosecution witnesses. "I'm a capitalist. I make money. There's a statute of limitations on what I do."

"The kind of stuff he was talking about is the kind of stuff that doesn't have a statute of limitations?" asked Assistant District Attorney Robert Eyer.

"Yes," Gallahan responded.

Gallahan is one of two men whom prosecutors say Schmidt, 56, confessed to. But Gallahan's testimony also offered something for the defense, which argues that authorities have the wrong guy and lack physical evidence linking Schmidt to the killing.

Gallahan said Schmidt claimed to have choked Sarko, who was shot. The other man who implicated Schmidt — Brian D. Miller, who also lived at the S. Mink Road property — was called a "bum" by Gallahan, who said Miller couldn't be trusted to pay his marijuana bills.

Last year, a county grand jury investigating cold-case murders recommended Schmidt be charged. Prosecutors say he gave conflicting statements about Sarko's whereabouts while cashing his Social Security disability checks and using his name to try to stay out of trouble.

Gallahan's testimony came at the end of a day in which prosecutors continued to build their case, with former SPCA officer Kathy Andrews saying Schmidt claimed Sarko was still alive more than a year after his disappearance was reported.

Cited for animal cruelty in January 2002, Schmidt said the emaciated dogs found at his former property were really Sarko's responsibility, Andrews testified. She said Schmidt even faxed her a lease purportedly signed by Sarko agreeing to rent the house on S. Mink Road and take care of the animals.

At the time, Schmidt had already lost the land to foreclosure, with poor conditions at the address belying claims anyone was living there, Eyer said.

"There were decomposing carcasses of animals rotting on the floor," county Coroner Zachary Lysek said. "Fecal matter. A strong smell of urine."

Prosecutors believe Sarko was murdered shortly after an earlier raid in June 2000 by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in which he turned over two pug puppies to Andrews and begged her not to tell Schmidt.

Sarko said Schmidt would "kill me" if he found out, Andrews recalled Wednesday.

"You described him as being frightened?" Eyer asked.

"Terrorized," Andrews said.

Sarko's remains were discovered in 2004 by a construction crew. Jurors saw color photographs Wednesday of what was recovered.

One picture showed a 101/2-size shoe, a foot still inside the sock. Another was of an earth-encrusted torso on a blue tarp, several ribs next to it. Photos of a bone near Sarko's left ear revealed the bullet hole where he was shot.

Even after the remains were located, identification was delayed until 2010, when a new type of DNA testing confirmed it was Sarko, who also had a sliced neck.

Gallahan, the drug dealer, said he had two conversations with Schmidt about Sarko.

At the time, Gallahan said, Schmidt was working for him in his drug activity, including holding guns for him. But after the second talk, Gallahan said he decided to break things off.